Creative Commons licenses are several copyright icenses released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S. Non-Profit corporation founded in 2001.
Many of the licences, notably all the original licences, grant certain "baseline rights", such as the right to distribute the copyrighted work without changes, at no charge. Some of the newer licences do not grant these rights.
Creative Commons licenses are currently available in 34 different jurisdictions worldwide, with nine others under development

Definition from Wikipedia.com